Just wanted to point out the anti-3D foolishness circulating the web!
A pseudo-study by The Wrap is showing a graph of the revenue takes of recent 3D movies to try and demonstrate a trend of dropping ticket sales. What they failed to mention is that the number of 3D screens in each film is very different, and there is serious competition now for movie makers to get their hands on 3D exhibition space for 3D films.
We can’t speak to “How to Train Your Dragon”. Our data shows that it was played in 2,150 capable 3D theaters out of 4,060 locations. We know they had to share 3D screens with Alice in Wonderland, so our data is foggy at best. We will try to tighten this up.
In the above graph, Toy Story 3 is shown to only collect 60% of its revenue from 3D movie screenings. Toy Story 3 was shown on 7,058 screens: 3,200 3D, 3,858 2D. 3,200 screens may sound like an impressive number, but they only account for 2,463 sites out of 4,028 (there is more than one screen per site). A lot of places still don’t have 3D screens.
Based on 45% of the concentrated screen space (not geographic space), 3D screens accounted for 15% more revenue than the much more widely dispersed 2D screenings.
The real crime in this graph is Despicable Me which is shown to only have a revenue take of just 45% credited to 3D ticket sales. Despicable Me was only shown on 1,551 3D screens out of 3,476 2D and 3D screens combined. So of course it is only going to have 45% of the revenue because between the limited number of 3D theatres and theatre locations, customers didn’t have a choice! We think that if there were more screens to play on, it would have been much more successful from a 3D numbers point of view.
We will work to get our numbers reviewed by the experts as all our data is from public Internet searches, and our expertise is more with stereoscopic 3D gaming. However, we think The Wrap should have taken more responsibility with their numbers by elaborating on their methodology and how they reached their conclusions.